Friday, December 25, 2009

Above is a preliminary sketch from Chapter 15, of Detective Paduano looking at a bat tower on Sugarloaf Key in FLA. I had no idea what a bat tower looks like, so I actually had to Google this. I could've just made it up, but I decided in this case I should make it a fairly real bat tower. So, there it is...

Monday, December 07, 2009

While taking a break between chapters of Shadow Bay, here's a small drawing on cardboard:

Colossal Mountain, 2009, ink on cardboard, 9.5" x 8".

The mountain could be seen as a metaphor for the body of work that the artist tries to create. The bigger the mountain...it seems like creating all the artwork for Shadow Bay is like building a mountain by hand, sometimes...

As you may know, if you've been following my blog postings recently, pretty much all of my time & artistic efforts have been taken up with Shadow Bay, the noir-blog-graphic-painted-crime-novel collaboration with the writer Donald J. Rothschild, who wrote the original piece as a stage play, which was then optioned as a movie script, but never made into an actual movie (yet.)

Now, we're up to around chapter 12 out of approx. 18 chapters, so we're in the final stretch. The end is somewhere in sight. A few more weeks, if there are no major distractions, & we shall be done. Then, of course, we have to figure out what to do with the finished piece/s...stay tuned...

Above: image from chapter 12 of Shadow Bay, which will probably be uploaded around Friday of this week.

Monday, November 23, 2009

This is a bit of a departure for me — I just did this smallish painting for the annual Rhinebeck Sinterklaas (old Dutch version of Santa Claus) Festival. They invited me to donate something for the art auction, so here is my version. I think it came out pretty well. I think it's finished, but I might do some more work on it.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Here is a drawing (sketch, I guess) that I did yesterday & put on my other blog (the one that focuses more on older work), but I thought I'd also put it here. It's another version of my tree man theme, which probably comes from Hieronymus Bosch's tree man in the Garden of Earthly Delights right-hand "Hell" panel, that I used to see when I would visit the Prado.

Monday, November 09, 2009

I was just fooling around with a Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen (or so it says on the pen barrel) & did this little drawing of a head at the dining table while my kids were doing their homework...came out quite well for a sketch. Maybe it'll become a painting or something sometime.

Sketch of a Head with Eyes Raised, 2009, artist pen on paper, 11" x 8.5".

The Ayton Artwork a Day blog is now gone. I'm going to be putting up a page on my web site soon with a selection of images from that blog, which will still be available, but at regular prices. Here is one of my favorite pieces from the series:

Thursday, November 05, 2009

After taking the photos in the post below, I've decided to switch out the large monochrome "Wasteland" painting (from the Black Paintings series) with the one below, "The Coming Storm." I may change it yet again before Saturday, of course...

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

I spent most of today organizing my studio for a small event on Saturday -- a little cocktail party/open studio for some friends. The studio is almost ready -- I want to do one new piece to round it off (I'll post that in a day or so, I hope), but here are some flash photos I just took in the studio, to give you an idea of the layout & what is on the walls right now -- basically, a selection of work both old & new...

The main pieces in this shot are Duino Elegy 10 (1999) on the left & Narcissus in the Pool (around 2006) on the right.

Main piece: Duino Elegy 3 (1999), on the easel is Babel from 2004.

The main artworks are: Orpheus Rising (2004), The Last Minotaur (1997) & Lost Empire (2006.)

Main images: Leaning Figure (2006) & Duino Elegy 2 (1999.)

Main image: The Wasteland from The Black Paintings, 1999.

Above the door: Menowar, 2007.

Various small paintings. [note: I seem to have photographed an "orb" above the 3rd painting from the left on the wall -- I assume it's just a speck of dust caught in the flash...]

The painting to the left of the French doors is Woman & Object, 1994. The flash didn't work properly here.

Some art materials.

I apologize that the quality of the photos is not wonderful, but hope that they are interesting from a documentary viewpoint. If you click on the photos, you will see somewhat bigger versions.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Shadow Bay, the noir painted-novel collaboration with writer Donald J. Rothschild, has just been updated with chapter 8 today. Here is a picture:

There are 33 images in the chapter, which is why it took quite a long time to finish this one. This is also the end of part 1 of the book, so we're going to take some time off & step up our search for a publisher or similar interested party. We're also toying with the idea of coming up with a "soundtrack", for want of a better word, for this. Stay tuned.

Monday, October 19, 2009

This morning I began the rough drawings for chapter 8 of Shadow Bay. There are going to be quite a lot (around 30, I think), so this will take a while.

Above, we see our main protagonists, Jo Landy & David Fisher taking in a late fall football game, before going their separate ways for Thanksgiving dinner. The chapter features family, friends, turkey, wine, with a bonus helping of violence & sex. You know, the usual...

Saturday, October 17, 2009

1. About to start work on chapter 8 of Shadow Bay. This is an important chapter in the piece, as it marks the end of part 1, & is a major dramatic episode. This chapter is going to be rather image-heavy, so I may not update this blog for a week or so...

2. I've been spending a good amount of time on my other blog, which is mostly dedicated to lesser-known older works from my archives. If you check in over there, you might see some interesting pieces that have not been seen before, or not often, anyhow.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Just your basic fallen angel (that would be Lucifer) surveying his domain (that would be Hell)...inspired by Milton, of course. Maybe someday I'll do more images for Paradise Lost...I know Gustave Doré already covered that, but I'm sure there's room for another version...

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About Me

I'm a British artist currently resident in upstate New York, where I live in the wondrous Hudson Valley with my wife & children. My work deals with imagination, myth, the human condition & social issues, and the way they intersect & allow us to understand the world. I've exhibited extensively in Europe, the USA, & more recently, Israel. You can see more of my work at www.ayton.net.
Regarding re-using my artwork from this blog (for not-for-profit purposes): in most cases, it's OK. Please credit me as the creator of the image, & if possible link to the page where you found the piece. If the image is used in an inappropriate setting, I will most likely ask you to remove it. Thanks.